


Ensnared

by Anonymous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Child!Jon, Episode: e081 A Guest for Mr. Spider (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs a Hug, Leitner Books (The Magnus Archives), Spiders, Web Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, well it's kind of amplied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25004122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Jon managed to escape unharmed the day he found a Leitner in a pile of battered paperbacks, but you can never truly escape the Web once it sets its many eyes upon you.You can only wait until it reels you in again, and prey it isn't hungry when you knock.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 120
Collections: Anonymous





	Ensnared

Nestled in the corner of Jonathan Sims’ childhood bedroom, safely concealed inside a little crack in the corner of the ceiling, there sat a spider.

It was not a particularly large spider, nor was it especially frightening to behold. It contorted its legs to squish its plump little body into that crevice in the plaster and seemed content to remain there. Waiting for an unsuspecting meal to stumble upon the thin strands of webbing it plucked at from the safety of its hide.

Even in the daylight, the thin strands blended seamlessly with the fading paint. Only when the sun set and happened to catch at just the right angle through the window could Jon see the shining threads, swaying in a breeze too gentle for him to even feel.

He complained to his grandmother, but she only clucked her tongue and told him not to fuss over a silly little insect.

“It’s _not_ an insect,” he insisted, and not just because spiders were arachnids, though the semantics mattered to him a great deal. He argued because the thing that sat in the corner of his room wasn’t a _real_ spider, he was sure of it. Real spiders she would remove for him ( _remove_ , but never kill. Not after she squished one with one of his books and he screamed when he saw the broken and twisted body stuck fast to the plastic dustcover, still twitching and spasming though its legs all bent the wrong ways). This spider was different, and she shooed him away before he could even try to put the ineffable _how_ into words.

Even armed with a duster, Jon couldn’t reach the web in the corner of his ceiling, and he was too afraid of what might happen if he dared disturb the thing slumbering in the dark crevice…At least, he assumed it slept during the day, because when he awoke screaming in the night he could _feel_ its gaze upon him. Even when he pulled the covers up over his head, he could feel it boring into his skin, and he sobbed into his pillow as he thought of the bleeding faces of the painted flies, and the boy who paid for a childish unkindness with his life.

Jon never liked Christopher. Hated him, in fact. In life he was cruel and cowardly enough to only pick fights he knew he’d win, but Mr Spider didn’t care if his meals were stupid and slow or wickedly clever and quick.

Deep down, he knew Christopher didn’t deserve to die for his ignorant delinquency. Sometimes, Jon wondered if he deserved to live for his own luck. In the end, that’s all it came down to. His good luck and Christopher’s unfortunate timing was all that stood between him and whatever horrible fate awaited him behind that door.

In the end, Mr Spider took another victim, and Mr Spider didn’t care…but _Jon_ cared. At night he still dreamt of that horrible book, and the blankness of his bully’s face as he made a beeline for the house that would entomb him. His limbs jerked, feet dragging along the ground like a puppet dangling from lax strings.

On the perfect, pristine pages, the flies’ faces contorted into screams and desperate sobs, but the boy never looked anything other than detached as he knocked on that door. Disconnected from his body, and from his mind. Absorbed in the words, and the pages, and the scratch of ink, and the smell of leather binding. On the worst nights, Jon dreamt he saw a fleeting look of clarity cross his face the instant those dark limbs seized him and drew him in close.

His grandmother told him he’d grow out of his nightmares, but if anything they grew more severe in the months that followed the incident. The occasional screaming fits increased in frequency until his grandmother could no longer muster up the energy to rise from her bed to check on him night after night.

Jon didn’t mind, she’d never been very comforting, anyway. He doubted _anything_ could erase the image of that day from his mind, every detail of the book seared into his brain. He turned the pages again when he closed his eyes, and found himself mouthing the words he knew by heart when he allowed his mind to wander.

He’d only read it once, but it had been enough, and he’d savoured every inch of the images though they made him sick to look at.

Jon didn’t know what had compelled him to approach the spot where Christopher vanished that day. What made him stumble forwards instead of hastily running back as he should have. As any sane person _would have_. But when the door slammed shut, the book landed neatly on the welcome mat. As if placed there with care, like a present instead of the last remains of a boy there would be nothing left of to bury.

He should have left the wretched thing there, but the same compulsive _need_ that forced him to trail after Christopher until he reached his destination compelled him again. Without thinking, he snatched up the book before turning on his heel and running as fast as his legs could carry him, convinced the door would open again if he stayed too long and drag him inside as well.

Eyes followed him long after he left the view of the house, so present he swore he could feel the wisp of breath on his neck as he forced himself to keep _moving_. A stitch twisted in his side, every breath burning his lungs, but even when his sprint devolved into a hurried stagger, he never allowed himself to stop. It wasn’t until he barrelled into the front door of his own home, drenched in sweat that he even noticed the book still clutched tightly in his arms.

He wanted to throw it outside, but that would require opening the front door to his pursuer. Instead, he threw it at the wall and turned the lock on the door to keep the monster out. He would have latched the chain as well, had he been tall enough to reach it, but the thick wooden door seemed sturdy enough to keep out those spindly legs. Then, terrified his grandmother would find it and Mr Spider would take her too, he snatched up the fallen book again and raced upstairs to his room.

He buried it in the safest place he could think of; beneath the heavy cardboard box at the very back of his cupboard where all of his old art projects and school jotters went to gather dust at the end of the year. He wedged it beneath the box, then tore down several jumpers from the coat hangers above him to bury the corner that stubbornly stuck out no matter how hard he pushed. His grandmother always told him that if he left clothes on the floor they’d get crumpled, but just this once he would risk the lecture.

It made him feel a tiny bit better when he slammed the doors closed and dragged the little chair in the corner over to prop them shut, but his chest continued to heave long after. Even before he began to sob, his face was wet with tears he couldn’t remember crying.

His grandmother found him an hour later when he failed to answer her calls that dinner was ready, hugging his knees and trying to sob through aching breaths that caught in his throat and tore at his lungs. He felt shredded and stitched back together and wished more than anything he didn’t have to breathe because every sharp and jagged breath _hurt_. They hurt to breathe in, and hurt more to let out, and he wanted it to _stop_.

Jon didn’t go back to school that week, and his grandmother remained by his side with uncharacteristic patience while they waited for the doctor. Convinced the flush of his cheeks and sweat soaked clothes were the result of a fever rather than an impromptu marathon, she never even paused to consider his story when he found his words again the following day.

“Fever dreams can be very vivid,” she assured him. “But it was just a dream, Jon. There’s no such thing as giant spiders.”

He could have shown her the book, but then he thought of how Christopher went deathly still, eyes glazing over as he soaked in the pages and began to walk and walk and walk-

Jon bit his tongue, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t bite back the screams when the nightmares started.

Pretending it never happened didn’t sooth his paranoia. It wouldn’t ease the weight of the unwavering eyes that fixated on him in the dark, and nothing could erase the knowledge of the book’s presence in the closet only a few feet away.

His teacher asked to set up a meeting with his grandmother when he fell asleep in class, but neither could come up with an explanation for his shift in behaviour. Jon stayed quiet and didn’t cause a fuss, never even trying to wander beyond the back garden. On days when he was too tired to read and too nervous to explore, he wandered the house in an aimless daze, pale and gaunt as a ghost. Those nights, he pushed his chair back in front of the closet door and pretended the book didn’t call to him from beneath the box.

Jon screamed when he woke from nightmares, but never so loudly as he did when he awoke to find himself up and out of bed, tugging at the corner of the book jutting out from beneath the box in his closet.

He spent half the night attempting to push his bed up against the door, inch by painstaking inch, only to fall asleep on the floor because he couldn’t bear to sleep so close to it. His grandmother yelled when she saw the mess and found him fast asleep in a nest of blankets across the room, but even as he cried Jon couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

That evening, he waited until his grandmother set about making dinner to swipe the box of matches she used to light the stove, shoving them in his pocket before she could think to return them to cupboard where they’d be out of reach. His small hands trembled as he shoved at the box until it allowed him just enough space to wiggle the book free. The cover looked just the same as he remembered it, but he averted his gaze from it quickly.

Burning it should have been easy. Lighting it cost him several splintered matchsticks before at last he managed to get the angle just right. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the book straight on, but he found himself staring at the flame flickering and wavering on its fuse.

He should have burned it then.

Jon still didn’t know why he didn’t.

The flame burned itself out, and he waited until the wisps of smoke curling from the smouldering match vanished into the night before wrapping up the book in his scratchiest second-hand jumper. With the book safely bound and once again stowed away in his closet, he hoped he might sleep soundly, but the nightmares were as raw and bloody as ever.

Every night that week he awoke screaming, and every night he vowed not to sleep another wink. But Jon was young, and the restless nights made it difficult for him to keep his eyes open through the day, let alone through the night. Dark bruises blossomed beneath his eyes, accompanied by a grave expression that had no right to grace the face of one so young. His grandmother fretted in her own way, distant but hovering as if expecting him to drop in a dead faint at any moment. His teacher pulled him aside to talk to him, but he could barely concentrate on the words that left her mouth.

At night he dreamt of spiders, but the feeling of their eyes drinking him in never ceased when he awoke, and his skin crawled as if their many legs still skittered and danced across it. He knew in those moments. He _knew_ that somewhere in the dark, his spider watched. Perhaps from the safety of its corner, truly content to sit in that crevice until it died of hunger or of age and its refuge became its tomb. Or perhaps it squeezed its fat little body out of the crack in the wall and stretched the stiffness from its many legs. Perhaps it only waited for the dark and the quiet when it knew Jon’s grandmother wouldn’t appear to creep down from its hidey hole and work on its masterpiece.

Jon never saw the spider, but sometimes when he stared at the crack for long enough, he swore he saw the tips of shifting legs as they tapped out rhythms on the delicate threads. Pulling them taunt before letting them fall lax, plucking at its masterful creation and waiting for the flies to do the work.

The book sang to him.

Eventually, Jon listened.

His eyes were reluctant to stay open, even as he found himself puppeted out of bed. Bare feet quickly grew numb on the wooden floors, stinging even through the fog and for a moment he grasped something close to clarity.

Jon put on his slippers and wrapped his dressing gown tight around him. Shivering, though not from the cold this time. Unlike when he retrieved the book to burn it, this time he didn’t hesitate. With unrushed movements, he pushed the chair aside and wrestled the book free. Every motion deliberate, every decision unwavering. Jon eased open his bedroom door and crept out into the hall. When he saw no light seeping out from his grandmother’s room, he allowed it to click shut behind him and made for the stairs.

To call it a dreamlike state would be an oversimplification, for through the haze clouding his mind, Jon still had the forethought to hug the wall as he descended the stairs, walking on the very edges where the creaking boards wouldn’t give him away. He left the house as if resigned to a fate long since decided upon, as if he’d been working the plan over in his head since he brought the damned book home with him. The crisp night air seeped through his thin robe and he hugged the book tighter, letting his feet walk without a thought for how he would reach his destination.

Something should have gone wrong. Even at that late hour, _someone_ should have noticed the child out of bed and wandering the streets…but he didn’t meet a soul. The world might as well have been empty as Jon followed the winding lanes down a path he swore he’d never taken before. Nonetheless, his feet knew the way, and it never occurred to him to question them.

Perhaps that should have been the most frightening part. The lack of resistance, how easy it was to slip under its influence and follow the tugging threads. Jon didn’t know where he was going until he set eyes upon the house. It felt right in a way nothing had since he found the book among a pile of cheap paperbacks.

Even as he unlatched the little metal gate, he knew what this must mean. Images of Christopher being whisked away through the very door he now approached flashed through his mind, but none of that stopped him from rapping his knuckles sharply against the wood.

_It is polite to knock._

Despite the late hour, it didn’t take long for the door to creak open.

Jon blinked owlishly as if awaking from a deep sleep as the light flooded out from the hall, illuminating a woman who, while neither tall nor wide, easily filled the doorway as she towered over him. She looked thoroughly unsurprised to find a small child on her doorstep in the middle of the night, and after a moment of deliberation, her thin lips curled into an open-mouthed smile. Something cold and full of teeth, but through the harshness he recognised it as an invitation.

The soft light caught on the strands of white woven through her hair, though they were not a sign of aging.

“Ms. Spider,” Jon said, and his bottom lip trembling as he held up his offering with a silent prayer. “I’ve brought you a book.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's block has been killing me these past few weeks, so I allowed myself to indulge and write this short piece. I intended to write more about web-influenced Jon as an adult, but alas things did not go as planned.
> 
> Still, if you made it to the end, I hope you enjoyed!


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